An high efficient actively Q-switched Nd:YVO4 self-Raman laser based on in-band pumped at 914 nm was reported. Particles from thermally excited Stark leveled in the ground-state were pumped to the upper lasing level directly, the Stokes factor loss was reduced to a minimum and the quantum efficiency loss was eliminated. This alleviated the thermal effect of the laser and consequently realized better performance. The effect of pump absorption on conversion efficiency was investigated experimentally in detail with the in-band pumping. Using two Nd:YVO4 crystals with different doping concentration, 1.51 W(1.0-at.%, 20 ℃) and 2.11 W(2.0-at.%, 20 ℃) output power were obtained respectively, corresponding to the conversion efficiency of 42.7%(1.0-at.%) and 39.0%(2.0-at.%) and the optical efficiency of 28.5%(1.0-at.%) and 35.2%(2.0-at.%).